Book Report: A Severe Mercy, by Sheldon Vanauken

 

A simple summary is impossible. The author recounts the total devotion of the depth of his love for his wife, their life together, their conversion to Christianity, her tragic illness and death in her thirties, his grieving, and finally, the spiritual realities he encountered in dealing with her death in the context of faith. With roots in Virginia, evidently from a well-to-do family, he met, fell in love, and married just prior to World War II. He recounts their travels to the Pacific theater of operations, life in the U. S., graduate school at Oxford, their conversion to Christianity, and return to Virginia. The issue became this: after becoming Christians, the author’s wife ‘Davy’ made Christ her first love, without wavering in her love for the author, but he kept his first love focused on her, while  also believing in the truths of Christianity.

 Most married couples have other paths, which occur when the difficulties of married life surface. Either they work through difficulties, or they give up on their marriage. But Sheldon and Davy remained devoted to each other, with no evidence of facing this test over the fifteen years of their love and marriage. And that was the challenge: Christ will ultimately abide no competitors. The Bible gives clear direction for how the love of husband and wife is to be placed in God’s economy. Davy accepted this, but Sheldon resisted. As the author relates it, ultimately it was the mercy of God, which was severe, which allowed him to be tested by removing the obstacle to him putting God first. All this was worked out while the author was in contact with C. S. Lewis, whom he had come to know at Oxford and subsequently corresponded with.

 There are a few interesting asides. One is a letter from C.S. Lewis, written in May 1954, on the Christian view of homosexuality and the potential theology of gay marriage. (Chapter VI, p 147-148)  But the title of the book comes from a C. S. Lewis comment in a letter after all has transpired. Lewis himself  lost his wife after four years of marriage, but this did not happen until after all these events (including his counsel to the author). Lewis wrote A Grief Observed after his wife’s death a few years later. One wonders how his words to Sheldon might have been different after his own grief.  This book was written well after C. S. Lewis’ book and death.

 How does one deal with God’s discipline of His children? It is the age old challenge of reconciling God’s holiness with His love. These were reconciled in the cross of Christ, but we mostly accept that theology and do not plumb the depth of visceral spiritual agony that Jesus experienced in the Garden of Gethsemane in order to have the strength to go through with it. This author draws us into his internal struggle with suffering and unanswered prayer. And thus to plumb the depths of God’s severe mercy. He loves us and acts for our own best, long-term outcome, however painful that may seem at the time. That is the conclusion we can draw from Sheldon Vanauken’s autobiography.

Book report: Eat the Rich, by P. J. O’Rourke

I can’t remember who recommended this book. A satirical (and hilarious) tour of the world to experience first-hand the consequences of the implementation of various theories of economics and governance: free markets, socialism, and communism. Along the way: Wall Street, Albania, Sweden, Cuba, Russia, Tanzania, Hong Kong, and Shanghai. Plus a side stop in a college Econ course to show what is wrong with basic economic textbooks (and introductory classes). [Fundamentally, they ignore the basic realities of life, in favor of theoretical equations that are irrelevant.] The amazing thing is that the author is a self-admitted former hippie and writer for Rolling Stone magazine.

The bottom line is that business and wealth creation are based on a simple principle: Voluntary exchanges, in which each party to the trade gives up something he values less in order to receive something he values more, increase prosperity. Self-interest is thereby harnessed for the good of society as a whole. (Credit to Adam Smith, The Wealth of Nations, 1776) What flows from this are a few statements that liberals and socialists reject:

•      Governments are intrinsically inefficient

•      Economies can’t be designed

•      The rule of law and respect for others’ property is an essential function for prosperity

•      Even though the poor are poorer than the wealthy, they do not improve their state in life by robbing them (criminally or through government-run redistribution).

•      Free markets tell the truth about economics

There is a short digression on the tenth commandment (Exodus 20:17). The author interprets it to mean that God says “hands off other peoples’ stuff”. He does not address the deeper spiritual question of hearts that are set on earthly treasure rather than heavenly (Matthew 6:19-21) because that is not his purpose. (I think a better understanding of the tenth commandment is that God says “hearts off other peoples’ stuff”.)

Fundamentally, the problem with socialism and communism is practical. They have been repeatedly demonstrated to be a complete failure, as recognized by the people living under them, in various places such as Russia, China, Cuba, and Tanzania. The author’s world tour provides innumerable practical examples at the level of daily life for the ordinary person. For poor people to have a better life (food, shelter, clothing, etc.), on a level above prehistoric hunter-gatherers, society as a whole needs to increase wealth. This can only happen through a free market, and will never happen under socialism or communism. And, as a bonus, in an effort to make their system work, communist & socialist leaders impose dictatorial control in a frantic (and fruitless) effort to force people to do what doesn't make sense.

My observation: This is largely why most of Latin America is attempting to emigrate to the United States - not for government handouts, but for the opportunity to participate in an economy that works.

Gen Z - beware! “We are Borg: you will be assimilated; resistance is futile.”

 This line from Star Trek Voyager was first aired in the late 1990’s. As the television episodes aired, the Borg were described as a species of humanoids that were cybernetically connected to each other and the central network via electronic implants. They were thus almost organic robots, although the series showed that they retained some degree of autonomy. Their overarching ethos was that they acted in accordance with moment by moment direction from this collective brain, and thus would be able to defeat any other species that had individual members not so connected.

 This paradigm aired while the internet was still in its infancy, approximately ten years before the “smart phone” was invented. Curiously, it also was right at the milestone marking the beginning of Gen Z birth years.

 In the present day, in a large part of the world, young people feel lost if they do not have their smart phone with them. This is manifested as a loss of direction, boredom, isolation. Although the internet does not provide moment by moment direction on what to say or do, it provides advice from innumerable pundits, connectivity for conversation with friends, and entertainment. We haven’t yet arrived at the Borg collective state. What is most troubling is the epidemic of mental illness and social dysfunction. Whether it is depression, a shooting spree, or hatred spewed in “social media”, continuous connectivity with internet-based platforms enables and often promotes anti-social mindsets and behaviors.

A key part of life first disappeared with radio and television. Once upon a time, silence was a common occurrence for people who were alone. This made it possible for prayer to connect to God, and easier to hear His voice. Radio & TV banished silence, but it is the smartphone and social media that now offers as a surrogate for connecting to God, continuous connection to the hive. Of course, there is an infinite difference between the experience of the presence of an infinite, transcendent God, and hearing the consensus of a large number of humans of limited intelligence and varying degrees of dubious amoral self-righteousness. If they can consense on anything.

These technological capabilities are here to stay. How can society cope with them to stabilize behaviors and live with them?

What most of humankind experienced in history during solitude and quiet was a tension between hearing God’s voice (and then having to decide whether or not to heed it), or occupying themselves (mind, will, emotions) with things of the world, the flesh, and/or the devil. This produced both Mother Teresa and Adolf Hitler. The challenge to adolescents is harder than previous generations, which “merely” had to choose to listen for God’s voice, and then recognize (discern) it. Gen Z, defined by children growing up with “smart phones”, now has to deal with an insidious surrogate in which the postings of friends or influencers are enhanced with a dopamine boost. This is a stronger influence to the flesh than the inner promptings of the Holy Spirit. (It is possible that influencers could be godly encouragers, such as Robert Barron or David Guzik, but they are far less stimulating to the flesh than the latest TikTok craze.) Adolescence is a phase in life during which external stimulation produces a growing visceral response as the body and mind mature into adulthood. The difference in degree between Gen Z stimuli and previous generations is so great that it differs in kind.

 How can we help adolescents cope with this insidious plague of social media?

·         First and foremost, to explain it to them. Teens are young adults, and twenty-somethings should not be allowed a prolonged excuse for irresponsibility. Teens have adult-level reasoning capability, although not the breadth or depth of experience of older compatriots. They can understand this intellectually.

·         Secondly, it is necessary to motivate young people to choose to not become Borg. The promises of Christ are amazing but they are mostly of service in this life, with rewards deferred to eternal bliss with Him. The motivation is meaningful life and a spiritual connection to God Himself. This is not nirvana, but purposeful activity that does not include slavery to social media. In our heart of hearts, we secretly want a meaningful life, but our carnal weaknesses war against it.

It seems doubtful that any program of government or educational or religious rules or practices can win this war. The battle must be waged on an individual basis by those closest.

Book Review: Dynamics of World History, by Christopher Dawson

Christopher Dawson, in Dynamics of World History (first published in 1958), explained his paradigm for history that goes beyond recording events, identifying physical causes and formal causes of historical shifts, to efficient causes and final causes. (He does not use Aristotelean terminology but clearly thinks in this framework). The foundations of history outline these causes, and his critiques of others’ views of history are largely based on their focus on a subset of the sources of culture change and history drivers. The factors that influence history and culture include geography, race, economics, physical environment, climate, knowledge, and religion. Changes on the world level are caused largely by either changes in one or more of these factors, or by the interaction of different cultures (resulting in adaptation and syncretism or war and conquest).  But no subset of the factors is sufficient to explain history.

Dawson's reviews of previous historians range from recognition of insight (Augustine) to critiques of obvious shortcomings of the others: Gibbon, Marx, Wells, Spengler, and Toynbee. He presciently (or perceptively) observed (in 1935) that the ultimate verdict on Communism will be that the house it is building for the new humanity is not a palace but a prison. But he is particularly strong on this point: If God exists and is sovereign and outside of our universe, His intervention cannot be understood by any of the factors that we can read about. This provides a view of history unique to Christianity, that it is the record of God building His kingdom, His city, on earth. This was first clearly articulated in Augustine of Hippo’s  The City of God, written in the fifth century. History is ultimately His story, with His purpose and plan. Although Dawson clearly states this (his view of final causation), most of his writings about history link material causes to efficient causes, not final causes.

The core of Dawson’s approach to understanding history is analysis of  interactions between previously isolated factors or players that result in events and change. One example: throughout most of history, city-dwellers have been culturally and socially isolated from farmers, hunters, miners, etc. - people who dwell in the countryside and only come to the city to do business. And these same factors have brought interactions between divergent cultures around the world.  Dawson touches on briefly is the impact of European culture on indigenous peoples around the world during the 18th and 19th centuries of worldwide empires.  In many cases, the native cultures were deemed primitive and collapsed under Western onslaught. Whether the economic benefits to these peoples outweighed the loss of their native way of life depends on several factors, which were not covered in this book, but alluded to.

It would have been interesting to get his analysis of the modern world, in which transportation and the internet have obliterated cultural separation. One of Dawson’s main paradigms is that when previously isolated social groups start to interact on a continuing basis for some reason, both parties are affected with long-term change. In my view, we need this kind of assessment to understand the state of the world today. It is more than just economics, language, culture, and information; there is a fundamental redefinition of the ground rules of behavior, resulting in mental health-driven crises, such as epidemics of drug abuse, gun violence, suicide, and mass migration. Who today assesses the causal relationship between technology and behaviors?

In sum, with 420 pages of densely packed scholarship, one must persevere to read this book in its entirety. Perhaps there are contemporary writers with this methodical approach, but I have not encountered them. Dawson provides a framework and a way of thinking about history, and cause and effect in understanding our past that bears on our present, from a Christian yet scholarly perspective. He cites scholarly references regarding events that are documented and supported by evidence, rather than Scripture. The bottom line is that history can be understood, and it is to our own hurt that we choose not to do so. 

What will the post-apocalyptic world be like?

‘Apocalypse’ has become synonymous with a civilization-ending world-wide series of cataclysms. The genre of doomsday movies and of life afterwards portrays an earth ruined by nuclear war and rampant plagues, lack of basic necessities like food, in which individuals or small groups struggle to survive. The apocalyptic reference goes back to Revelation 1:1, the Greek word for revelation being apocalypse, the very first word in the book, linked to the worldwide catastrophes described therein. These events are also described in Matthew 24, Mark 13, Luke 17 & 21, and Ezekiel 38-39.  

Returning to Revelation 1:1, the verse says … “The Revelation of Jesus Christ, which God gave Him to show to His bond-servants, the things which must soon take place; and He sent and communicated it by His angel to His bond-servant John.” [NASB]  Substitute unveiling for revelation. This is the prophecy that unveils the mysteries associated with Jesus. These aren’t mysteries to believers - those who know Christ and serve Him - but these events will resolve mysteries of Christ to the world. That this unveiling involves calamity for the world system is an indicator of how depraved it is.

The accounts are indeed terrifying. In fact, in Mark 13:20 Jesus says that unless the Lord had shortened the days, no life would be saved. But the important part from the Biblical perspective is that the love and holiness and power and glory of Jesus’ divinity will be revealed for all to see. And then He will reign on the earth, just as He does in heaven. This reign will begin with 1,000 years of peace and righteousness as described in Revelation 20, because Satan will be bound. It does not say how long it will take to rebuild the earth from the devastation that will result from mankind’s rebellion, Satan’s war, and God’s setting things right. But with Christ physically and visibly reigning on the earth, there will not be the dysfunctional anarchy portrayed in the post-apocalyptic film genre. What Jesus is, He will remake human society to.

What is Jesus like? We get a hybrid picture of His behavior during the Incarnation, when He was on earth in the flesh, and the image of Him in heaven recorded in Revelation 1:12-18. His love is declared openly, but not with emotional attachment as its primary focus; His love chooses and wills the best long-term outcome for the beloved, whatever the cost to Him or to others. And because of His uncompromising holiness, this will result in pain over sin. He paid the price in His suffering on the cross, but we will experience pain when He disciplines us for our own good, so that we may share His holiness. (Hebrews 12:4-11) 

The Second Coming by Ron DiCianni

The outcome is that we enter into His joy.  This is the post-apocalyptic world we can expect. In the millennial reign of Christ, swords will be beaten into plowshares, righteousness will be the norm, the wolf will lie down with the lamb, with longevity and rejoicing in the Lord’s presence. (Isaiah 2:2-4, 11, & 65:11-24). I challenge Hollywood to portray that!

Eternity without Christ is ...

What is hell? Functionally, it is the eternal, spiritual destination of the devil and his angels, and of those who reject Christ. The question in my mind is what does it look like and what happens there? Jesus gave few specifics, nothing beyond saying that the their worm does not die and their fire is not quenched. (Mark 9:48)

Traditional imagery has pictured hell as a perpetual blast furnace (unquenched fire). Something like the third chapter of Daniel, except that the Hebrew young men and the Son of God were not harmed by that furnace. Fire is punishment, causing eternal torment. 

Let me propose a slightly different view. Fire also purifies, especially metals, from impurities. Perhaps in this eternal destination, God directly purifies those who cling to rebellion against Him. For those who love sin, this purification of sins they hold on to results in perpetual pain, because their vice is denied. Perhaps it is eternal insomnia in the middle of darkness in which the memory of actions and choices, now regretted, cannot be avoided by sleep and can no longer be remedied by repentance and atonement. A bad conscience for all eternity. Or perhaps God cleanses that by eliminating it, and there is nothing left but an empty shell, unable to enter His presence. 

C. S. Lewis offered another view in The Great Divorce. He addresses the question of how a loving God could send people to hell by picturing a post-death tableau in which people are offered the opportunity to go into God’s Presence but choose not to, for a variety of stupid reasons. The reasons are stupid because people choose transient soulish activities, and emotional relationship manipulation over permanent, transcendent bliss. And in Lewis’ depiction of hell, people reside in (can’t say live in because they are dead) ethereal dwellings in an endless slum, in which they keep moving farther and farther apart because they can’t stand each other.

Jesus said that hell was prepared for the devil and his angels. (Matthew 25:41) This certainly implies some forcible restraint because the demons don’t want to be there (Luke 8:31). In some respect their powers are curtailed. But their essential nature is unchanged since they chose to reject God’s love and holiness in full knowledge of the eternal consequences of that choice. They will eternally persevere in being fundamentally evil at heart. They have it, but I doubt they will like it.

Another possible view of hell might be that it is not a separation from God’s presence, but being in His presence, and the torture of feeling the pain of having our life essence being purified by His holiness. But this does not seem consistent with Scripture, which in several places has Jesus saying “Depart….” So perhaps sending people away from His presence is an act of mercy on God’s part. Their torture in the outer darkness is that they can no longer prey on those who have chosen God, and they recognize what they are missing out on because of their choice of evil instead.

We have a choice in this life: Jesus offers eternal life to those who will receive Him and choose to receive, however imperfectly, the nature and character of God. God is love. (1 John 4:7) He defines agape as sacrificial self-giving for the good of another, as demonstrated in Jesus’ death on the cross to redeem humankind. Not some namby-pamby feel-good emotional high, but a positive visceral, moral and ethical virtue or attribute. Willing and working for the best, long-term good of another. 

Hell will unfortunately include the ultimate reaping the fruits of sins, with the demons laughing at humans who foolishly chose them. It will be the eternal outcome of their own decisions and actions. For those who do not choose Christ, an endless eternity of emptiness; wanting something they can never have; all alone in pain and rejection remorse; emotional and physical desires always there but no way to satisfy them; knowing others are in heaven and enjoying God’s presence, while they have nothing; burning in their desires but no way to make the pain stop. Whatever its exact makeup, if we are separated from Christ, it will be hell.

Book Review: Deliver Us From Evil by Don Basham

Originally published in 1972, Don Basham’s book, Deliver Us From Evil, starts with an autobiographical storyline of how the Lord led him into a ministry of deliverance. This book does not deal with evil on a national or global scale -  Nazi Germany, or gang warfare in 4th world countries. The author tells of his experiences ministering to people dealing with personal evil. One hears about such individuals all too frequently in today’s headlines of mass shootings. But this book deals with the spiritual evil that simply messes up individual people’s  lives. 

Don Basham was part of the Charismatic Renewal that exploded in the 1960’s as God began to pour out the Holy Spirit on those in many different churches who were open to Him. The author  was not the first to have a ministry that included deliverance, as he frequently acknowledges. He relates his story in an accessible, matter-of-fact narrative. Demons are real and they mess up lives, so much that Jesus devoted a quarter of His ministry on earth to dealing with them. They are still around, despite having been defeated by Jesus 2,000 years ago. The first half of the book relates stories of the author learning to take this victory to the lives of those who are so afflicted and seeking release. 

The last half of the book expounds the principles of the ministry, dealing with the basic questions such as:

• How to discern whether a particular issue is just human depravity (sin) or supernatural (demonic) oppression. 
• The steps to perform deliverance,  for another person or for one’s self.
• How to keep the victory once gained over demonic attack.

The key point in all this is that Jesus has won the victory over the world, the flesh, and the devil 2,000 years ago, but we need to receive it from Him. There is a war going on that will not end until the return of Christ. If it seems that the evening news shows a broad offensive by evil against human civilization and society, then we need to go to boot camp so that we can be effective soldiers in this fight. Spiritual warfare is fought on all levels and we must engage the enemy when we encounter him. The authority of Jesus Christ, invoked by His name and the Word of God spoken by those who know and trust Him, is our weapon, and we must learn to use it. The need for the full armor of God (Ephesians 6:11-17 ) become obvious  necessities once we recognize the realities of the war in heavenly realms that we are in. Bringing Christ into every situation will subdue evil far more effectively than government initiatives, however well-intentioned they may be, because Jesus will intervene to defeat the root cause of evil.